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Contracts with NBC and then Harpo kept her in limbo. "I love Oprah; I was held to Harpo for four or five years, but she wanted to develop OWN, and I wanted to be in syndication. So we shook hands and went our sepa- rate ways. I'm a free agent!" McCarthy is hosting season two of the summer reality matchmaker series Love in the Wild on NBC, and she is throwing herself into her own VH1 talk show, set to debut this fall. The late- night weekly run has the potential to become a nightly series. "I kind of want to make it really boutique-y and small," McCarthy says, her voice rising at the end of sentences, making her answers sound like questions. "I don't like the idea of a big stage that separates you from the audience. I'm more, like, in-your-face?" She's envisioning "a bit of Mad TV meets Jon Stewart, but a little dirtier and sexier." McCarthy went to the boards with the VH1 brass to keep production in Chicago. "We're meeting about that," she says. "I swear, people, there's a reason why Oprah had her show here. It's the heart of America! Don't be stupid." M cCarthy grew up on the South Side of Chicago, the second of four daughters to her hairdresser mom and steel-com- pany foreman dad. "My mom knew I wanted to be on TV, and she'd say, 'Oh, why don't you just tell them that you want Vanna's job? That would be great! She's so classy!'" McCarthy did, in fact, follow in Vanna White's footsteps: First to the pages of Playboy, then to a game show in the mid- '90s: MTV's Singled Out. Unlike White, though, McCarthy crafted an edgier, more vocal persona. "Starting from the get-go, I made sure I wasn't perfect," she says. "I just wanted to be real. You know, I burp, too, but don't be offended." Despite her loyalty to home, McCarthy doesn't attend her high school reunions. "I don't think I'm invited," she admits. "I think maybe posing for Playboy and going to an all-girls Catholic school might have been an issue." She also doesn't com- ment on her equally famous and funny cousin, Plainfield's Melissa McCarthy. "It's kind of impor- tant to let somebody have her stage and just shine," she confides, "so that's what I'm doing." McCarthy has moved back to Chicago for the year to be with her family, and she has enrolled Evan in a local school. She's got a hometown honey at the moment, too: Chicago Bears line- of made myself put a gag order on it. I'm happy, though." After a long pause, she adds, "Go Bears!" Jenny's Genres No topic is out of bounds for the outspoken actress. * Due out October 2, McCarthy's seventh book, Bad Habits: Confessions of a Recovering Catholic, is about "what I've gone through in terms of my spiritual upbringing," she says. "It's about Catholicism and church steeples and questioning, thinking I'm going to hell, feeling liberated, posing for Playboy, shaming my family, moving forward… all of it." * Entertainment Weekly gave McCarthy's first book, JEN-X: Jenny McCarthy's Open Book (1997), a grade of A, calling it "a witty, inspirational story that is both a classic piece of pop-culture ephemera and a grand record of it." * Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth (2004) could have been called "What to Really Expect When You're Expecting," including constipation and sex in the ninth month. Afterward, she lost 60 pounds on Weight Watchers and became a spokeswoman. * In Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism (2007), McCarthy went public with her son Evan's autism and caused an uproar when she urged parents to think twice before vaccinating their kids. "I haven't talked about the vaccine issue for maybe three years now," she says. "Not because I've changed my answer, but because everybody heard me, loud and clear." backer Brian Urlacher. Given that our interview is taking place months before this issue will come out, McCarthy knows that the less she says, the better. "I'm hoping that by fall, things are still great," she confesses. "I kind McCarthy confesses that her other obsession lately is clutch purses. Something symbolic could be made of this—that she has no need for the security of a strap, say, or that she's now determined to be hands-on with her career, or that she's minimizing her emo- tional baggage. More likely, she just likes to shop. "I love Net-a-Porter," says McCarthy. "When I go downtown, I'll hit Barneys, I'll hit Neiman's. You know I worked at Bloomingdale's while I lived in Chicago for a summer? So it kind of reminds me of being back in the day, walking down Michigan Avenue and working." Until now, working has mainly meant writing. Without a TV project, writing was McCarthy's chosen mode of expression. "To write a book, you better have a lot of stuff happen to you," she says. "I was blessed with a lot of drama and a lot of fun and a lot of controversy and a lot of curiosity. I pretend I'm on e-mail, telling my girlfriends my stories. I feel like a translator, breaking things down so people can understand." Her books shifted in tone and took on a more serious air when she opened up about the autism diagnosis of son Evan in 2007's Louder Than Words, which spent 23 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. McCarthy says that Evan recovered with a gluten-free, casein-free diet, metal detox, vitamins, antifungals, and expen- sive therapy. "I'll keep writing books until I can pay for Evan's upbringing," she says. Also adding to the coffers is the buzzed-about NBC summer special titled Surprise with Jenny McCarthy. "This was a show that was in the UK for 20 years," she says. "I get who've done great things in their community by making their dreams come true." She reunited one woman with her birth mother; she jumped out of an airplane with a soldier. One warning: Do not surprise McCarthy—in any way. "I hate surprises," she offers. She has enough challenges as it is. She's divorced from Evan's dad, actor/director John Mallory Asher, she's collected some high-profile exes ( Jim Carrey for one), and has a habit of speaking her mind. Some challenges, though, are of her own mak- ing. When Evan woke up one day with an abscess in his mouth, his dentist told McCarthy to take a photo of it on her cell phone and send it to him. The elderly dentist instead received a nude shot meant for her boyfriend. "It's horrific to remember," she told Wendy Williams. But such is the life of a single mom. Who hasn't been there? MA MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 109 to help people